Hi there

My old Hitachi Deskstar suddenly died on me, and I am made to believe something went wrong on the PCB, since the disk never have any warning it simply stopped working. When I try and power it up, nothing happens (no spinning/vibration).

Anyway, I have bought a Donor PCB with the same MLC etc.

I have, however, heard that I need to replace NVRAM and ROM chip (or something) from my "patient-PCB" onto my Donor-PCB. How do I locate these chips?
I have found an image of exactly the same PCB - so would anyone be so kind as to tell me what I need to change? Please tell me if you need a better image to identify the various chips.

PCB Image can be seen here:

http://www.hdd-donor.com/pics/1277837560.jpg

Thanks
Michael

By demand, I have taken a new picture of my own board which should have a bit higher resolution and sharpness.

Thanks

Take PCB with matching 1st two lines from white sticker, and move 8-leg chip @ U5

DIY AT YOUR OWN RISK

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That's right.

Do not forget that could be any other problems after.

Okay thanks

And that is the only chip I need to move?

I had come to the understanding that I had to move two chips...?

Your board have only external NVRAM...The rom is inside the MCU, which is harder to move...Take the advice from pcimage and move the NVRAM only...Of course it's on your own risk!!

Rgds

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Ok

I have now received my Donor PCB and it is infact the correct one (matching first two lines on sticker). My question is - should I try and connect the PCB without moving the U5 NVRAM? Or does that make no sense? More importantly - could I damage the disk by trying it?

I know it's all my own risk - but what i'm really asking is: What would you do?

Thanks

What you need to do is take the advice from pcimage and move the 8 pin chip at U5 to the new PCB. It contains unique adaptive information that is required for the drive to function correctly. You have pretty much no chance of it working without swapping over this chip.

Also see what dmarques said, that there could also be other problems beside the PCB.

Have you done this before (moving over the chip) or are you getting someone else to do it for you? It's best you make sure it's done properly as you definitely do not want to destroy or damage the chip by mistake. Don't forget the risks involved here, but if the PCB was the only issue and the chip at U5 is swapped over correctly, your drive should work again.

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